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We saw that Jesus, himself, would probably not have comprehended its intricacies, and certainly would not have accepted it as true of his own mission. Instead, it represents the theosophic speculations of the Ancient World.
The courage necessary for him, above all things, had been denied this man. His life, with such ray of the empyrean in it, was great and terrible to him; and he had not valiantly grappled with it, he had fled from it; sought refuge in vague daydreams, hollow compromises, in opium, in theosophic metaphysics. Harsh pain, danger, necessity, slavish harnessed toil, were of all things abhorrent to him.
The action and reaction of life have real meaning for me only as I know and remember. No theosophic evasion can take the force out of this. If I consciously connect to-day's pain with yesterday's pain with the folly or fault of a previous existence of which I am really unconscious, the chain has been broken and no speculative question can supply the missing link.
That is, he says man is made up of three instead of two. But in step our Theosophic friends, who pile on four more, and tell us that man is sevenfold. Now who is right! According to their own account they are all right. But this is impossible. In our opinion they are all wrong. Their theories are imaginary. All they know anything of is the human body.
No man of Sterling's veracity, had he clearly consulted his own heart, or had his own heart been capable of clearly responding, and not been dazzled and bewildered by transient fantasies and theosophic moonshine, could have undertaken this function. His heart would have answered: "No, thou canst not. What is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, attempt to believe!
This curious discovery is attributed to Andreas Libavius, professor of medicine and chemistry in the university of Halle, who, in the year 1615, publicly recommended experimental essays to ascertain the fact. Libavius was an honest and spirited opposer of the Theosophic system, founded by the bombastic Paracelsus, and supported by a numerous tribe of credulous and frantic followers.
In a poetic age in the time of Aeschylus, for example Plato would have been a poet; and then perhaps we should have had to invent another class of poets, one above the present highest; and reserve it solely for the splendor of Plato. Because Platonism is the very Theosophic Soul of Poetry. But he came, living when he did, to loathe the very name of poetry: as who should say: "God pity you!
An elderly, English gentlewoman was of her party; a lady famous for her wealth and her peculiar toilettes, for her theosophic and Christian mysticism, metaphysically in love with the Pope and also with the Duchess who laughed at her friends.
The Protestant Churches proper, their spirit being more emotional, feel the doctrinal movement less. But they are not unmoved, as they show by relaxation of tests and inclination to informal if not formal union, as well as by increasing the aesthetic and social attractions of their cult. Wild theosophic sects are born and die. But marked is the increase of scepticism, avowed and unavowed.
Does it not follow that, in the Fourth Gospel, we have the more theosophic portions of ancient philosophy attached externally to the life of the Prophet of Nazareth? Under such conditions of origin, how can we begin to separate reason and revelation?